Absent Cigarette Sparks Debate Over Stamp

Published: September 18, 1994

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17—
A stamp commemorating the blues guitarist Robert Johnson was unveiled today, but pro-smoking groups say it is missing something: the stamp shows the musician without a cigarette.

The artist who prepared the stamp, issued today at a blues festival in Greenville, Miss., deleted the cigarette from the photo of Johnson used as a basis for the design.

A committee that advises the Postal Service on stamp designs had recommended the deletion "because they didn't want the stamps to be perceived as promoting cigarettes," said a Postal Service spokeswoman, Monica Hand.

But Thomas Humber, president of the National Smokers Alliance, complained in a letter to the Postmaster General, Marvin Runyon, that the decision was "an affront to the more than 50 million Americans who choose to smoke."

Ms. Hand said there was no cigarette on a recent stamp honoring the journalist Edward R. Murrow, who was rarely seen without a one and the labor leader George Meany was pictured without his ever-present cigar.

Nonetheless, a cigarette has appeared at least once on a United States postage stamp -- a 20-cent stamp honoring the centennial of the birth of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1982. The former president is pictured with a cigarette and holder.

Johnson, who was murdered in 1938 at age 27, is among the jazz and blues greats being honored in a set of stamps that the Postal Service is unveiling at the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival. His image on the stamp is based on a photograph by Stephen C. LaVere.

The stamps went on sale today in Greenville and will be offered nationally on Monday. Others pictured on the stamps are Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Jimmy Rushing, Mildred Bailey, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Billie Holiday.

The Jazz/Blues series is the fifth set in the Legends of American Music Stamp Series issued by the United States Postal Service. The first set, introduced on July 13, 1993, honored rock 'n roll and featured the Elvis Presley stamp.

A postal spokeswoman, Valoree Vargo, said the music stamps were good business. About 70 million of the Jazz/Blues stamps issued -- 20 percent of the total -- will never make it to an envelope, Ms. Vargo said, but will instead be saved by philatelists and music lovers, to the profit of the Postal Service.

Photo: A detail of the stamp honoring the 1930's musician Robert Johnson, minus his cigarette. (United States Postal Service)